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some reason for coming. At that time I was closely identified
with the work of London and with the work of London's great
Council, but now I am cut off from that, and I have no connection
with the work of London except in the humble, but the
necessary and, I may add, the indispensable character of a
London ratepayer. (Cheers and laughter) I once had a very
near and dear connection with a borough which is not far from
Clerkenwell—I mean the borough of East Finsbury. I shall
never forget the generous and unsolicited confidence I received
from East Finsbury, and were I still connected with East
Finsbury in that way, I should feel that I had some claim upon
your suffrages to-day. It was, however, my duty to cut myself
off from East Finsbury because, when I could not do any work
for that constituency owing to the ties of office, it was my duty
not to solicit their suffrages. It was, however, no light task for
me to cut myself off from the London County Council. I had
attended its first meeting, and I had sometimes cherished a
secret hope that I might continue on that Council as long as life
should be given to me. But we cannot always realise our
cherished hopes, and it would not have done for me to remain a
member of that Council and be distinguished only for inefficiency
and the completeness of absenteeism. I am no longer a member,
but among the many castles in the air I build for that day when
I shall be released from office—a day which, if I may listen to
prophecies daily uttered to me, is not altogether remote—
(laughter)—but as to which I think the nearness is somewhat
over-estimated—(cheers)—among those castles in the air for
that more remote epoch, I think, than is generally conceived
there is the hope that some day I may, by East Finsbury or
some other means, return to that Council in which I am so
closely interested. (Cheers.)
There is another reason why I may consider myself not very
fit to open a hall of this kind, for I am one of those who, as some
of you may know, attach special importance to the unification
of London, and, therefore, many of you may think that I am
somewhat out of place in coming to glorify a district town-hall.
Well, I know that those who are in favour of the unity of
London are apt to be regarded with some suspicion. When we
enter that precinct which is distinctly called the City of London,
we are regarded somewhat like Wat Tyler was regarded—Wat
Tyler, who, by-the-bye, once ravaged Clerkenwell, and the anniversary
of whose not wholly untoward demise we celebrate this
week. I venture, however, to say that those who think that the
advocates of the unification of London are out of place on such
an occasion as this, make an entire mistake—a confusion as to
the grounds on which we urge that unification, for the unity
that we desire for London is not a crushing unity, not a